PvP is, oddly, a very viable way to level in Rift. The exp is solid, plus you get the daily warfront reward boxes which give you level appropriate PvE blue gear.
The quests get significantly better (imho) starting at level 50. At that point you move on to the SL zones which have much smoother quest designs. Where you’ll get tripped up is if you are a competeist and get hung up on the Carnage quests. Carnage quests are your traditional “kill X of Y” quests, but they are triggered by killing one of those critters. So if you’re wandering through an area and kill a ghoul, you’ll get a pop-up quest saying “Kill 12 ghouls”. If you decide to stay in the area and kill those 12 ghouls, you’ll get a button allowing you to claim your reward (exp, some stones which are used to buy gear, and some plat). Carnage quests are everywhere; it’s hard to kill something and not end up getting a quest from it. They are purely optional and aren’t connected to any central quest lines.
I don’t like PvP and I don’t want to grind rifts, they are incredibly repetitive. Instant Adventures seemed like just running around in the same area killing stuff; I joined one and wasn’t engaged. What I really want are good quests-- and if those don’t come until level 50, Rift has got a serious problem.
What are these MMOs with good low-level quests that you speak of?
WoW, obviously. Also Neverwinter and GW2. Oh, and even SWTOR is far superior, it doesn’t force you to revisit the same area multiple times in a row, SWTOR has 2006-era quests, versus 2004-era quests in Rift.
Guild Wars 2. I keed, I keed.
Very tempted to pick up Storm Legion now and see if my Justicar/Shaman/Sentinel is still OK.
Ender
2846
Time is my biggest cost, so for me the question is which do I pay for to optimize my experience. I think Rift wins for a 1 month patronage.
Rift is actually activity overload. There are so many quests, adventures, dungeons, warfronts, and of course rifts to do that your problem generally is trying to keep straight what the hell you’re actually working on. It’s nigh-on impossible to not have something to do. And even the generic kill quests are layered on top of other quests in the same area, so in, say, lighting four urns you’ll have to kill dudes that, yeah, you’ve got a quest to kill anyhow. Great art it ain’t, but it’s very action packed and leveling speed is pretty fast if that’s what you’re into.
I just started playing a little after a looooong absence. I had some veteran/loyalty rewards available, like that 110% horse, but I had forgotten how to play the damn game. There are so many abilities and so many combos it’s kind of overwhelming. So I have been playing lowbies to get the feel of it again, and to see which if any macros I still need, etc.
One thing seems to be the same, though. The damn Runic Library or whatever warfront still sucks.
Wolff
2848
Well I for one sure dont think wow or swtor had “good” quest design. The story quests in swtor were excellent but unfortunately those made up only a fraction of the leveling experience. For me the combat has to feel good and the underlying systems interesting. IMO wow simplified too much with the talent changes - rift hits a sweet spot for me by letting me quickly change playstyles in the field and easily engage in a bunch of different activities.
SWTOR had lots of other problems, and its quests were not great-- 2006 was quite some time ago. But WoW TBC quests were a huge step up from WoW vanilla quests.
@TheWombat: Maybe at high level, but not at level 20. You can quest (which sucks) do instant adventures (I can see the attraction, but I didn’t enjoy them, and certainly don’t want to do 30 levels of IAs) or PvP (not for me).
Ender
2850
@stusser random dungeons at 20.
Yeah, and how many LFD runs do you figure it will take to get to 50? At only 1-2 dungeons per level range, that’s a ton of repetition. And what do you do while waiting for queues?
Not a good answer.
Do all the Achievements and artifacts obviously :)
Attended an ingame wedding, turns out there are artifacts in there, so now we need 6 more people in guild to get married to get all the artifacts ;)
Um, I’m playing now with characters from 1-20; it is still overload. I mean, you’re killing stuff, and quests pop from stuff you loot, from environment items, from world events. You get prompts to join adventures. You can queue, after 10, for warfronts. Every quest you turn in seems to offer another quest. And then there’s crafting. And I have to disagree that the quests suck any more than any other game’s quests. Then again, I never, ever read the quest text. I regard all quests as instructions on how to gain experience and loot, as pointers telling me where to go to kill stuff. That’s it. I couldn’t care less what they are about or for, and I’ve been this way since EQ1 at least.
Not all games are for everyone, obviously. I find the story quests*/rifts/invasions/crafting/gathering/IA’s and different soul combos offer enough variety it never feels like grinding, not even post 50 where there are many complaints - but then again, I’m never in a hurry anyway.
*As opposed to the generic quests strusser describes which I agree do involve too much to and fro. I don’ do pvp in this game, either - way too much bunny hopping and nerd rage, but then I’m easily annoyed.
Oghier
2855
I don’t think I’ve ever seen an MMO with more things to do. If you’re only doing overland questing, you’re playing a small fraction of the content. I suspect that’s also one of the slowest possible ways to level.
To be fair, in Rift, a lot depends on when you’re on. If it’s very busy, with lots of players, it’s chock-full of stuff. If few people are on, it’s a lot slower. And Trion’s approach is clearly to take bits from other games and throw them all at you, shotgun style. There is less of a finely crafted unique experience and more of a smorgasbord of activities.
Those activities don’t lead to a well-crafted leveling experience, though. The quests suck rocks. Instant adventure is just running around killing stuff with a group. Dungeon and rift grinding gets old really fast.
PvP may be well done, I don’t know as I have no interest in it.
Wolff
2858
I just don’t see another mmo doing so much as well as rift. The complaints you raise can be leveled at every other mmo on the market.
No, the leveling experience in GW2, neverwinter, and of course WoW are great.
If you like Rift, that’s cool. Diff’rent strokes.
